With trembling fingers she pressed the cold washcloth over her face, muffling her sobs. Every moment seemed to be worse than the last. Every day darker. She felt as if she were slowly descending into hell.
It was more than she could take. She wanted it to end. She wanted out of the corner she felt trapped in.
She didn’t know how Jack could stand it, how he could not swallow that whole bottle of pills and just go to sleep forever.
By sheer force of will, Kate composed herself. She wasn’t helping herself, and more importantly she wasn’t helping Jack, by giving in to weakness. She needed to be strong if she was going to survive. He wanted to help her, but he needed her to be strong if he was going to be able to do that.
She stifled her weeping and washed off her makeup. She rinsed out the mascara and then put the cold washcloth against her eyes again, trying to get some of the redness to go away.
“Are you okay in there?” she heard him call from the other room.
“Yes,” she answered. She sniffled. “Be right there.”
When she came out she said, “My mascara was running. I had to wash it off.”
“You don’t need it. You’re beautiful without it.”
He gave her a brave smile that even made it into his eyes. She didn’t know how he was able to do it. She returned the smile. She didn’t know how she managed to do it herself. Two people offering the comfort of a smile in a grim world gone mad.
“Here,” he said, returning from his carry-on bag.
He seemed composed. Maybe because she had given him a purpose. But then again Jack always seemed self-possessed.
He handed her two small knives.
“These are kind of … cute,” she said, trying to brighten the gloomy mood a bit. She looked up at him. “But seriously, I can protect myself with these?”
“It’s not the weapon that matters as much as the person who uses it. A plain old rock can make a deadly weapon.”
“Why are you giving me two?”
“You have two hands, don’t you?”
Kate looked at the knives. They had simple textured sides to keep the fingers from slipping. Each knife had a clip along one side. They fit the palm of her hand nicely, yet they were so small she didn’t see how they could be effective.
Jack pulled the knife out of his pocket. It was exactly the same as the two he had given her.
“One of the important features of this knife is that you think it’s cute.”
Kate was baffled. “Why is that an important feature?”
“Because it doesn’t look threatening. A big, wicked-looking knife will scare people. Scaring bad guys is all well and good, but it’s important not to scare the good guys.”
She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Okay …”
“If the police should happen to see a big knife—in your hand or in your purse or find it in your pocket—alarm bells go off in their heads. You just made yourself a potential threat to their safety. They are instantly on alert and instantly suspicious of you, much the same as if you’re carrying a gun.
“It may not be fair, but that’s the new reality you have to deal with. Fair isn’t one of the rules. The police are under constant assault from all sides and second-guessed in everything they do. They are increasingly vulnerable on the streets. They rightly feel that no one has their backs.
“A big knife makes them view you as yet another potential threat and they will treat you that way. Even if you cooperate, it’s to their personal advantage to go all bureaucratic on you.”
He showed her the knife in his hand, pointing to the clip.
“Always keep it clipped on your pocket so it’s right there just inside. That way it’s easy to get to. You won’t have to remember where it is. It’s not going to be a million miles away in your purse in those brief seconds when you need it to live. You won’t have to fumble around looking for it. Having it in the same place every time and pulling it the same way every time develops muscle memory. That gives you one less thing to worry about in a deadly situation.”
Kate nodded “Okay, I get it.”
“To open the blade you hold it like this, in your palm. Press your fingertips against the side to hold it tight against the heel of your thumb, leaving the top of the blade clear. See this metal stud on both sides of the back ridge of the blade?”
Kate leaned in a little and looked, then looked at her own knives. She saw what he was talking about. “What do they do?”
“It’s a thumb stud to assist in opening the blade,” he said, “so that you can open it with one hand in an instant. Use your thumb on the stud to flick the blade past its resistance point and it pops right open. Watch.”
The blade snapped out so fast she could barely see the movement. She recognized the soft metallic click she had heard the night before when he had gotten out of the car for the gun-wielding killer.
Both the top of the blade and the sharpened bottom edge tapered in very slight arcs to a wicked-looking needle point.
“The blade can’t be more than two or three inches long,” she said, looking at the knife he was holding. “That doesn’t seem long enough to be an effective weapon.”
“You don’t need the blade to be longer than that,” he said. “A longer knife is certainly deadly, but if a bigger knife, then why not a sword? It’s a matter of what’s practical. A bigger knife is deadly, but in some ways harder to handle, which means more opportunities for mistakes. If you make a mistake when you need a knife the most, you will die.
“A big knife is also harder to carry and to hide. In some places knives over a certain length are illegal and will get you in trouble. This one is so small it rarely raises any more suspicion than a nail clipper would. That’s because people don’t understand what you can do with this.”
“What you can do? How am I going to defend myself with this little thing?”
“Well, for one thing, a bigger blade creates more drag so you can’t necessarily cut as easily.”
She looked up at him. “Wouldn’t a bigger blade give me a better advantage? More reach? More power behind it and the ability to stab deeper?”
“How do you peel a pear?”
Kate’s brow twitched at the question. “I hold the knife in my fist, like this. Then I put my thumb against the pear and pull the blade toward my thumb, but holding it like this, so it won’t slip and cut my thumb.”
“You do it the right way—cutting the skin off the pear with the heel of the blade, right up next to the handle. You do it that way because it gives you more precise control. Would a twelve-inch kitchen knife make it any easier to peel the skin off the pear? Would you use the pointed end, out near the tip?”
“Well, no, that would be awkward. But if a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound guy is lunging at me, what do you expect me to do with this little thing? Peel his scalp like a pear?”
“No, I expect you to do the same thing as when you peel a pear with it: control the blade to make precision cuts.”
Kate cautioned herself to douse her alarm and listen to what he could teach her. Jack obviously knew what he was talking about.
“All right, what do I do and how do I do it?”
“You already understand the basics because of your martial-arts training. If you had had this knife when you fought that guy last night, the fight would have been over in the first few seconds. You got in that first strike against the side of his head, largely because you surprised him. It was effective, but not lethal. However, it was a perfect killing strike you can use with this knife.”
Kate frowned as she looked from the knife back up at him. “Okay, how?”
Jack put his finger on the side of her neck below her ear and drew it around and down toward the front of her throat.
“Your hand was already there, at his ear. With the knife, instead of worrying about punching his ear, you thrust out the same way, then pull the blade back toward yourself, cutting the carotid artery at the side of his neck.”
He
held the side of her head with his left hand, and put pressure against her neck with the fingertips of the other. “The carotid artery supplies blood to the brain.” Kate almost immediately felt herself starting to get light-headed.
“See?” He released her. “If you sever the artery, that denies blood to the brain and the person will be unconscious in a matter of seconds and dead soon after. The jugular is there as well, so you’re likely to get that as well. The jugular returns blood from the brain, so cutting it, too, speeds the loss of blood from the brain. It’s remarkably fast. Remember the guy with the gun last night? Remember how quickly he went down?”
“I remember,” Kate said.
“There are also vital muscles and tendons in the neck. With a small, razor-sharp knife like this, you can slice faster, cleaner, deeper, and easily sever those tendons. Even if you miss the carotid artery and sever muscles and tendons in the side of his neck, he won’t be able to hold his head up.”
“What if you don’t have an opening to go for the side of his neck?”
“Point your finger at me, like you’re pointing a gun at me.”
Kate did as he asked, imitating the way AJ had done it.
“Block the gun to the side, like this, the same way as you must have practiced for most of your life. You already have the muscle memory for that, right?”
Kate nodded. “Sure—it’s a pretty basic move.”
“Once you block the attacker’s hand off to the side so he can’t shoot you, then you can do a variety of things. For example, as you block, bring your other hand down in a fast strike with the knife, slicing the inside of his wrist.
“That cuts the tendons so his dominant hand won’t work. He won’t be able hold up the gun to pull the trigger, so you have effectively disarmed him. Secondly, you will have cut the arteries in his wrist and he will begin to bleed out. It’s not fast like the carotid artery would be, but he is going to start to lose a lot of blood. Don’t forget, cutting those arteries in the wrist is a tried-and-true suicide technique, so it’s going to be a dangerous wound unless the bleeding is stopped.
“When people see themselves bleeding profusely, it tends to freak them out. Unless they’re on drugs, of course, or a psycho.
“Either way, once you’ve done that, then it’s easier to kill them as quickly and efficiently as possible. What do you usually do when you block a gun hand like that?”
“Well,” she said, demonstrating in slow motion, “if the guy is bigger, like you are, I would punch up with my right hand into his throat.”
“Good. Do that with this knife in your fist and you will cut his windpipe. If your knife slips off to the side, you’ll likely cut the carotid artery. Either way, he’s going down. The fight is over in the first few seconds.”
“What if he doesn’t have a gun and instead he simply hunches as he lunges in at me to power me to the ground?”
“Use a strike you already know how to do. Two quick jabs and in a matter of a second or two you’ve permanently blinded your attacker. Blinding them right off makes you the one in control of the fight, and in control of how you finish him.
“If you need to, the blade is long enough to slice open their abdomen, unless the attacker is really obese. Do that and their intestines spill out across the ground. Then they, not you, are going to be the one who is panicking.
“If you have to duck low, stay close like you already do and sever the femoral artery on the inside of their thigh. That will make them lose massive amounts of blood in short order. It’s a lethal strike.
“If they knock you to the ground, spin around and cut their hamstring to cripple them. Cut the other one and they’ll be on the ground. This knife is razor-sharp and ideal for that.
“You know how to fight, Kate. You know all the vulnerable parts of an opponent. You proved that last night. You simply need to add a blade to the moves you already know.”
Kate looked at the little knife in her hand in a new light. It suddenly was a legitimate deadly weapon. The things Jack was telling her fit right in with what she already knew. She never really thought of martial arts as primarily a lethal discipline. The things Jack was explaining turned it into one.
“We’ll practice to get you used to the most effective moves,” Jack said. “Maybe we can use lipstick so you can make a mark where you would have cut me if you were holding a knife.”
Kate was calmed by how clear Jack made the lessons. It wasn’t as foreign a method as she had imagined. “That sounds straightforward enough. It certainly would have ended my fight with that guy last night a lot quicker.”
Jack nodded. “Every second a fight goes on is a second your attacker could do something just as deadly to you. They could shoot you. They could throw you down on the concrete and split your skull open. That guy last night had a knife he pulled at the end. You were tired and it was showing. You didn’t even see it. He could easily have stabbed you.
“Just remember, there is no ideal method to defend yourself.” Jack tapped her forehead with a finger. “That’s your best weapon.
“It doesn’t matter if you stab a killer intent on murdering you, or if you shoot him, or you split his skull with a tire iron, or you run him over with your car. It only matters if you live and he doesn’t. There are no rules.
“And, remember, there are always bigger, more deadly weapons. You have a knife, he can shoot you from across the street. You have a gun, he can throw a hand grenade at you. You have a hand grenade, he can nail you with a sniper rifle from a mile away.”
“That’s not very reassuring.”
“I’m afraid that’s just the way it is. All you can do is be prepared and do your best. One thing to keep in mind is that these predators who are hunting you want to get up close, so on balance this knife is a good way to defend yourself.
“Keep in mind, too, that you can’t always depend on being able to recognize a killer by looking at their eyes. You may not always be able to see their eyes. It may be dark. They may be wearing sunglasses. They may have seen you first and so they don’t give you a chance to look at their eyes.”
“The guy last night was like that,” Kate said. “I saw him at my brother’s house, after the murder, but I never saw his eyes.”
Jack nodded. “That’s what I mean. Keep in mind, too, that serial killers often try to present themselves as nonthreatening. The better he is at killing, the better he is at putting people at ease first. They can be charming, and if you can’t see his eyes you may have no way of realizing the threat.
“Because of who you are, everyone is a potential threat. Don’t let them have that element of surprise. Your advantage is in seeing evil first, if you can. Your safety is in ending a fight as quickly as possible.
“For example, that woman, Wilma, where you work? One punch ended her life. If you let a killer get in that one blow, it could easily be over before you have a chance to fight back.
“Your best defense is to be polite, be professional, and have a plan to kill everyone you meet.”
Kate sighed as she realized he was giving her the only real advice he could give her. But it was discouraging to have her world turned upside down in a way she could never have imagined.
“In the meantime,” he said, “I want you to practice opening those blades until you have calluses on both thumbs and you do it all night in your dreams.”
“Got it,” Kate said. She did feel a little bit more empowered.
Empowered or not, the idea that people wanted to kill her, and they had posted photos of her, was intimidating.
She flicked open the blade of the knife in each hand. It was a little awkward, especially with her left hand, but it was easy to tell how far a little practice would go.
Jack smiled his approval. “Good. Just be careful not to cut off one of your fingers.”
Kate didn’t think he caught the irony of what he’d just said. She didn’t want to remind him of it.
“I’m sorry that I’m pushing this on you so fast, when your b
rother hasn’t even been buried yet, to say nothing of AJ and her family just being murdered.”
Kate nodded. “I understand. It’s all right. You just keep pushing me. In a way, it gives me purpose and that keeps me from dwelling on grief.”
Jack smiled and gestured to the sitting room. “How about we eat before the food gets cold? You gotta eat to live, right?”
“Right.”
CHAPTER
FORTY-FOUR
Jack opened the square white containers and set them out on the coffee table. Kate tore the wrappers off the plastic knives and forks.
“I wish I’d had the chance to read A Brief History of Evil,” she said as she stabbed a pot sticker with a plastic fork. “Maybe you can fill me in.”
As she dipped a pot sticker in a cup of sauce and then took a big bite, Jack took a few pieces of shrimp tempura.
“Well, at this point it wouldn’t do you a whole lot of good. You’re well past that book and into needing to know about my next one.”
“What’s it going to be called?”
“A Long History of Evil.”
Kate paused a moment at such a chilling title. “So is it about evil down through the ages?” she asked before putting the other half of the pot sticker in her mouth.
He watched her a moment, apparently considering how to explain it. “You and I both want the world we live in to be a civilized place, a safe place of law and order. We want to live our lives in peace and for corruption to be stopped.”
“What’s wrong with that? I think most people would want the same thing.”
“What’s wrong with it, is that despite how much most people would like it to be that way, that doesn’t always fit with man’s fundamental nature.”
Kate shrugged as she chewed. “There are times when things go wrong, and times when the world is doing better. I get it.”
Jack made a face. “No, I don’t think you do, not in a complete way, a way that makes the connections from historic eras all the way down to the Scavenger Hunt site and guy who killed your brother. That’s what the new book is about.”